THESE NEW OLD TRADITIONS

This guy wants YOU to have a blessed January.

Ah, the January doldrums have begun. The fun end-of-the-calendar is over and Ground Hog Day is still in the distance. We Revelers spend a lot of this time taking naps, but admittedly we’re getting antsy. Luckily, there are a lot of holidays in late January that the greeting card stores know nothing about. Below is a totally non-comprehensive list of what they might be. Get your Sementiave hats on! It’s time to celebrate!

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14, Thursday
Pongal - Remember Thanksgiving? Remember how I suggested that it would be a good thing to learn about other harvest festivals? Here’s one for Tamilians. Now go figure out who the Tamilians are.

Makar Sankranti – Festival honoring the sun transitioning from one place to another by flying kites! Amazing. Celebrated in North and South India by Kannadigas & Telugu people.

Festum Asinorum – Translation: The Feast of the Ass. Maybe because it honors then Jo, Mary, and little Jesus rode a donkey into Egypt to avoid nasty doings by King Herod. But apparently it’s related to the older “Feast of Fools,” which is said to have been celebrated so extravagantly as to be considered blasphemous. Regardless, it sounds dirty.

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15, Friday
Seijin-no-hi – Shinto holiday honoring the journey of the young into adulthood. First, there’s a ceremony, then all the young folks go out drinking. Hazah!

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16, Saturday
National Religious Freedom Day – Good old Uncle Sam commemorates the adoption of Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which officially separated the Church from the State. Hmmm… “officially?”

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19, Tuesday
Timkat – On this day priests in the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church wear some crazy colorful clothes and celebrate the baptism of Jesus. National Geographic makes it sound really spooky in this informational video.

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20, Wednesday
Vasant Panchami – Hindu festival dedicated to beautiful artsy goddess, Saraswati. The festival marks the beginning of Spring, which seems kinda early.

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24, Sunday
Sementivae - Old Roman festival of sowing honoring goddesses of earth, grain, and seed. Part of the whole Midwinter festival madness we’re about to see.

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30, Saturday
Mahayana New Year – The Mahayana Buddhists celebrate their new year with the first full moon in January, which makes sense to me.

Tu B’Shevat – A Jewish birthday party for trees. Because all trees like a party. I wonder if cell phone trees can get in…

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31, Sunday
Imbolc – BIG DEAL old-ass festival. It’s ancient. And, just like Vasant Panchami, it’s about the first signs of Spring. So, even though we’re still freezing and have a long way to go before flowers start popping out of the ground, all these ancient cultures are telling us that the moon told them Springs a’ comin’. Who am I to argue?